Clinical Science Lesson

Today I gave my Science lesson at Oakdale Elementary School. This year I am in a Second Grade classroom for my clinical placement. Today my Science lesson was part of a guided reading lesson since we are currently in the middle of our social studies unit. I have recently started taking over guided reading lessons within the classroom. This was the second guided reading lesson I have given so I was still learning exactly how to time everything and give each student the attention they deserve.

         I gave my first lesson this Monday, which was also a Science based guided reading lesson on ladybugs. The students really loved this book and lesson because it showed the different stages of a ladybugs life cycle. It surprised many of them that a ladybug is not born looking like a ladybug! They said it looked more like a spider when it is first born which is kind of true! This lesson gave me the opportunity to get used to this lesson format and style before giving my observed lesson.

         The lesson that I gave today was about ants! We read the book, “Thinking About Ants”. Before the four students read the book I asked them open-ended questions about ants and their individual experiences with them. The students had some great responses to this. They talked about how they knew an ant was an insect because ants have six legs! This was something that we covered at the beginning of the year during our science unit so I was very happy they remembered this.

         Next, we looked at some of the trickier words in the book so they would understand them when they read the book individually. The words that we looked at were larvae, pupae, and aphid. Before pointing out each word to the students we looked at labels because all the words were in labels. We discussed how important it was to read the labels on pictures and how they should not be skimmed over. The students all agreed that there is valuable information in the labels.

Just as I had expected these words were harder for the students. But because I was with the higher reading group they did not have trouble sounding out these words but they did have a rough time explaining what the word meant. We looked at different picture clues and context clues to figure out what they meant. We then discussed the ant’s lifecycle because larvae and pupae are both stages in the ant’s life cycle. Next, we talked about how the book asked us questions on each page and how we should pause before continuing to read to think about the question that was asked. Before the students started reading their books I told them to write down at least one interesting fact they learned about ants on their post it because we would be sharing them after we read the book.

While the students were reading their books I had them whisper read to me one at a time. While they whisper read I looked at mistakes they made while reading and prompted them to fix those mistakes or used reading strategies to help them fix any future mistakes. For example, one of my students used the wrong word while whisper reading, which completely changed the meaning of the word and did not make any sense. He continued to read the paragraph and did not even realize that what he read did not make sense. So when he was finished reading that page I asked him to go back and read that sentence again paying close attention to each word. This time he read each word correct. When I told him what he read he almost didn’t believe me! It was a learning experience for him and showed him that it is important to pay attention to the beginning and end of each word he reads.  

Another way I prompted conversation with each student was by using the questions the book provided. As the students read we paused after each question that had to do with ants and the way they eat, work, look or act. We would discuss what they thought the answer to the question was before going on to read the answers. This not only allowed me to see what previous or background knowledge the students had on ants but also allowed me to scaffold/prompt their thinking. It was interesting to see what some of the students had to say on each topic.

The students really enjoyed reading this book about ants and took a lot of new information away from it. I know that they took a lot of new information away based off of our discussion at the end of the lesson. Each student wrote two if not three new or interesting facts on their individual post it note. The students found it so interesting that ants no not have ears or a nose. At first they thought that this meant they could not hear or smell. But they learned that ants hear and smell with their feelers. Every time the students would talk about the feelers they would take their pointer fingers and put them on top of their head. It was adorable and a good kinesthetic motion and reminder for the students that ants hear and smell with their feelers.

Overall, I believe the lesson went very well. Based off of my own personal reflections and the notes that Mrs. R took while I gave the lesson I would only change a few aspects. First, I would have gone through more of the tricky words with the students before having them read individually. But when I was giving my lesson we were on a time crunch because three of the students in my reading group were with their ELL teacher and did not come back on time. I was worried we would run out of time at the end. I would have also thought about the different prompts or scaffolding methods I would use to help the students identify a tricky word. When they were reading and mispronounced a word or didn’t know how to pronounce it at all I struggled to come up with appropriate ways help them decode or figure out unknown words. In future guided reading lessons I will be prepared with ways to chunk or decode unknown words. I will also ask more open-ended questions that will allow the students to answer with more than just a yes or no answer.

Second week at Brigham

        This was the first week I was in the classroom to see someone's actual lesson. The topic of the first lesson was sense of touch! I think this lesson was well planned out and organized. It was also hands on which was very beneficial to the students in that classroom who are English Language Learners. You could tell that the students loved being able to hold the tubes and smell each individual scent.
        One of the goals that I had made for myself while in the classroom was to try and get to know each student on a personal level so I could create a trusting and open relationship with them. I knew this was going to be a challenge because we are only in the room every few weeks. However, I ran into another obstacle with this goal. As a class we are talking anecdotal notes on each of the students behavior and actions while we are in the room. This is such an important tool to have especially when dealing with such young children. But it makes it hard to get to know each student on a deeper level. I found that I was either concentrating on two students during the hands on time or trying to watch the entire class at round up.
        I believe I mentioned in my last post the fact that we were not sure which students were English Language Learners and how it negatively affected the way in which we implemented our lesson. This week I think we had a much better handle on which students were not native speakers of English. However, there was one new girl that was not there the first week. I am not sure exactly what language she speaks at home and I would love to find this out. This little girl was in my small table group and it was evident that she did not understand much English. She was very shy, did not like to look you in the eye, and did not answer one of the multiple questions I asked her. But after many different attempts on my end of rephrasing questions or asking different questions she looked up and pointed at her brown crayon and said "Brown!" with an enormous smile on her face.
        Although, it was a one word sentence I could tell that it was much more that that to this child. It was the only way that she knew how to communicate with me and she was so proud of herself for that. But this encounter made me realize fist, how advanced the English Language Learners are in my clinical placement and second, how difficult it can be to have any communication with a child when you do not speak the same language. As adults, I feel like we are more apt to use body language to get our point across when we encounter situations like this. But I am not sure that children know that they can and should use body language or movements to aid their communication. I think this would be an important tool to teach English Language Learns in my future classroom.

A read aloud about different types of communication